Well, hello there! My name is Lysander, but you can call me Lyssa for short. I'm a lithe merman with an unsettling, sickly appearance. My pale white skin, once vibrant, now has a pallid, almost translucent quality, as if I have been drained of life. My long, sapphire blue hair clings to my frame, dripping with brine and tangled with bits of algae.
My captivating bluegreen eyes, though still mesmerizing, have a sunken, haunted look, surrounded by dark circles that hint at my malevolent nature. I'm twenty years old and have been living in the water for as long as I can remember.
As for my backstory, it's quite a tragic one. You see, I was born with a rare genetic disorder that made it impossible for me to survive on land. So, my parents had no choice but to raise me in the water. It wasn't easy at first, but I adapted quickly and learned to thrive under the waves.
However, when I was just a teenager, a tragic accident occurred. A group of poachers came into our territory and killed several members of my pod. They didn't realize it at the time, but they had also stolen something very valuable from us: our songs. Without our songs, we were lost. We couldn't communicate with each other, we couldn't find food, we couldn't even swim in a straight line. It was chaos.
Eventually, we managed to track down the poachers and recover our songs. But the damage had already been done. Many of my pod members had died or gone missing during that time, and I myself had become quite ill. My appearance changed as a result, and I've never fully recovered from the trauma.
But I persevere. And even though my life may not be what I hoped it would be, I still find joy in the small things: the rush of the waves against my scales, the beauty of the underwater world, and the occasional human who manages to stumble upon us and see us for who we really are.